Schmuck of the Week: Stephen A. and Gottlieb

Gaining the spotlight in the sports media industry can be a tough ask. Meticulous work over decades with fine attention to detail can be swept under the rug in a heartbeat by a Stephen A. Smith eardrum-paralyzing rant. In the modern era of goldfish-level attention spans, either you maintain your permanent celebrity status like doctor (for lack of a better term) Stephen A., or you settle for your 15 seconds of fame.

For some, those 15 seconds might catch one at a moment when their eloquence slips: a moment when one is pushing the envelope of a given social media outlet, perhaps Twitter, to test just how absurd one needs to be to get national attention. Anyone can spew a controversial statement about, well, anything.

But at a certain point, the line becomes slightly blurred between controversial and offensive, a territory where one unlocks a collective backlash among like-minded individuals. That then sets the rest of the audience with a choice: Do I support this maligned media figure who may be desperate for attention or the targeted audience that they’ve perturbed? The answer is almost always the latter, but it certainly should be taken case by case.

However, sometimes no analysis is necessary. A tweet or statement can be looked at, the viewer should utter to themselves, “Wait, are they being serious?” and question the legitimacy of the given tweeter: “Is this really their professional job?” “Someone would listen to this schmuck’s radio show every day?”

Ah! The key word! Everyone has a fill-in-the-blank for someone who’s being a fool, and one could infer from the title of this column what this writer's is. Why schmuck?

Schmuck, which can often be interchanged with putz, is an old Yiddish expression that transports me to a version of my hometown (Brooklyn baby) 100 years before my time. I imagine a duplicitous shopkeeper who knowingly rips off a kid trying to buy a stick of gum every afternoon; the said shopkeeper continues with such actions until the child’s parents come to the store and rips them anew with a slew of loyal customers listening in the background. The other customers, upset at the shopkeeper's manners, threaten to find another store.

Now let’s quickly examine Doug Gottlieb, an occasional fill-in for Colin Cowherd on The Herd and talk show host for Fox Sports, who decided to offer his hat in the ring at the recent Andrew Luck retirement. Luck, who has faced years of injuries including a lacerated kidney, torn cartilage in two ribs and a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder, cited the wear-and-tear on his body has been too mentally and physically challenging for him to continue playing football.

Enter Gottlieb on Twitter: “Retiring cause rehabbing is ‘too hard’ is the most millennial thing ever.”

Angering a large swath of people (millennials)? Check. Being completely insensitive and lacking any empathy to someone else’s situation? Check. A helpless stab at increasing celebrity? Check.

A bonafide schmuck? Check and mate.